In Turcheck et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,784,493 an apparatus and method are disclosed for recognition of an article and its orientation on a conveyor. To determine orientation of a work article, a number of possible orientations are recorded in a memory. The data stored in the memory for each orientation is compared with scanned data from a work article. Orientation of the work article is determined by matching of the compared data.
To enhance resolution, more data points are required which has traditionally meant more expensive processing both for memory size and processing time. The time required for making such article orientation determination restricts the number of articles that can be processed in a unit of time.